What Happens in the Swamp
by scorpiaux
Summary: “What happened with Zuko…Aang, it was a one night thing. You don’t understand. We had been there for weeks.” Sometimes she apologized without realizing what she was apologizing for. Exploration of the Swamp, years later. Kataang, Zutara, Rated M.
1. Entry

**What Happens in the Swamp**

**Summary**: "What happened with Zuko…Aang, it was a one night thing. You don't understand. We had been there for weeks." Sometimes she apologized without realizing what she was apologizing for. Exploration of the Swamp, years later. Kataang, Zutara, Rated M.

**Author's Note**: After "Letters from the Falling Sky," and various one-shots, this will hopefully be a fiction to remember. I truly admired the episode "The Swamp" in the series. But I feel like there's so much to be added**.**

I'm not really a fan of Zutara but it is an interesting contrast to Kataang, so when I write Zutara I find I have a tendency to add Kataang to it. I don't know how this one will turn out, to be honest, but I've found that this story is nearly writing itself.

If Katara was 15 when the show ended, she is about 20 in this. That makes Zuko 22, and Aang (for the sake of the story, even though it's not technically correct) a good 19.

I mention this so that you are not confused, or horrified. Ha, ha...

Happy reading!

-scorpiaux

* * *

-1-

_I remember thinking what bad luck it was, for us to be sucked into the Swamp like that, in the middle of the night…it was raining, too, and dark, and Zuko and I were both irritated and annoyed with ourselves and with this turn of events—we hadn't seen one another in about two years and I was reminded of why we almost never got along. Bad tempers, the two of us. And big mouths._

_At first I blamed Zuko and his sense of direction. And then I blamed Aang for telling me I should go with Zuko to represent the Southern Water Tribe at this conference that was supposed to be important. I have never found much in my life to be important. But when it comes to politics, Aang knows better, and I trusted him, agreed to go. It would only be for three days. And there was a hotel involved, one that was rumored to be amazing and ornate and luxurious. Three days listening to old men talk about things that didn't really matter, but a nice hotel. It was one of those "pros-cons" argument, if you know what I mean, and our tribe's igloos aren't exactly what I call fancy living._

_After we were walking for about three hours, I blamed myself, because Zuko had never been to the Swamp before, but I had. I should have remembered how to direct us out of there, but I couldn't remember a thing. And the balloon…the balloon was destroyed. It wasn't like we had Appa. We had some dinky war balloon with a Fire Nation emblem on it. The war has only been over for five years. Somehow I imagine that we looked like an open target to the Earth Kingdom. Somehow I imagine we looked vulnerable, and stupid._

_I can tell you what I know; I don't think I should have gone with Zuko in the first place. I don't think I should ever go anywhere with him again._

* * *

He said simply, "I think we've been here before," and turned to her for confirmation. But when Katara stared back at him with a questionable expression on her face—brows down, mouth pulled to one side, arms crossed—he turned his attention back to the vines blocking their path, and sighed outwardly. If the familiar outline of a makeshift passage through the vines wasn't enough to convince him that they were here before, Zuko could see their footprints from earlier: his larger foot, and Katara's smaller one.

"It's getting late," he said instead.

"It is." She shivered, pulled her coat a little closer. Zuko assumed that she would have been used to the cold based on her background, but Katara was no warmer than he was. It might have been the opposite. Since their arrival here, he had held a small flame in his hand to light their way. Thankfully, even though it was raining, the thick canopy was stopping any water from getting to them. But it was cold, and smelled damp, and Zuko was exhausted and sick of this.

She looked around them and announced, "You know what? Let's just set up camp. Right here. We can finish looking for a way out in the morning. What do you think?"

"You're asking my opinion?"

"Why wouldn't I?"

Zuko cut a dry twig with his dagger and set it in the center of the clearing—it looked like some form of rock, a boulder, with a flat top that both of them were standing on, and a bottom covered in moss. Around them, there stood a mass of branches and vines, and a small hole, where Zuko and Katara had wandered in unknowingly, and walked in a circle, and returned here.

"Oh, I don't know. You didn't seem very considerate when we landed here. If I remember correctly," he finished, cutting another twig and throwing it with the rest, "you were swearing, and it was loud."

"Forget I asked," Katara fused lazily.

"Why did you bring a tent with you?"

Katara was removing a tarp from one of her bags, and looked up to find him staring at her intently. She blinked, suddenly self-conscious, and stood up, dusting her knees. "Why not?"

He answered, shrugging, "I don't know. I would have never thought to bring a tent with me on my way to one of the greatest hotels in the world."

"Not all of us were raised in palaces," she returned evenly, lifting one of the longer branches Zuko had cut and fixating it to the side of the tarp. "Besides, you don't have to sleep in here. I only brought one tarp. You can sleep outside. On the ground."

She was mostly kidding. Katara didn't mind sharing tents with anyone. But he took the comment seriously, and—frowning—started cutting the branches off with a little more force.

For a short time there was silence. A bird screeched loudly from above them, and when Zuko jumped, Katara started laughing without pretending she wasn't. He ignored this. Then he finished setting up a fire, small but warm, and sat cross-legged in front of it, face expressionless. Katara's finished tent was large enough to fit a good four people comfortably, but she didn't ask him to come in, and she didn't tell him that she wanted to sleep. Instead she joined him by the fire and threw a small pebble at his face.

It hit the center of his cheek squarely; he flinched.

"What are you thinking about?" she wanted to know. "You've been staring at the fire like that forever."

"Forever?"

"For a long time," she corrected distractedly.

"I would appreciate it if you didn't throw rocks at my face," Zuko said, picking up the pebble and inspecting it.

Katara was swatting at a thin swarm of some species of insect. "I would appreciate it if you hadn't led us into this hell hole," she replied hotly.

"I would appreciate it if you could remember how to get us out." Zuko sent a hand through his hair, clearly distraught, and turned to her. In the dark, and against the slight light from the fire, Katara's eyes looked as though they were glowing. It was a captivating shade of blue, thought Zuko, who was absentminded enough at this point to be annoyed with this person but also in some form of awe at her creation. It was enough that the skin around her eyes was smooth and flawless. Without thinking, he slumped forward and covered his scar with his hand, resting his elbow on his knee, making it look as though he were thinking.

"Anyway," he clarified, "arguing won't get us anywhere. So maybe we should just…sleep or something."

Or something, she wondered. What else was there to do besides sleep? The thought of apologizing crossed her mind, but Katara decided against it. There was nothing to apologize for. They had exchanged a set of choice words, argued, complained, whined at each other. And here they were, in a situation that could be deemed both pathetic and remarkable. Although she didn't know how it would be considered remarkable. Maybe it wasn't remarkable at all. Maybe it was just stupid luck; destiny and fate, colliding and overlapping. She was reminded of Ba Sing Sei then, and she looked at the side of Zuko's face—he was covering part of it with his hand, for some reason—and said, "I'm sorry."

"It doesn't matter," he said monotonously. "I'm sorry too. I can't believe we're going to miss this meeting." Then he fell to his side and turned his back to her.

She realized without him telling her that it was time to sleep—'or something'—and so she crawled underneath the tarp, closing her eyes and thinking of ways to escape, and if the men at the conference would send for them once they realized they were missing. Or if they would be here forever.

Or at least a long time.


	2. Blanket

What Happens in the Swamp

**Summary**: "What happened with Zuko…Aang, it was a one night thing. You don't understand. We had been there for weeks." Sometimes she apologized without realizing what she was apologizing for. Exploration of the Swamp, years later. Kataang, Zutara, Rated M.

**Author's Note**: These chapters are short compared to other fictions I've written; so please excuse the experimentalism, and enjoy.

-scorpiaux

* * *

-2-

_Parts of the Swamp were missing. If you were to look at it in a map, there would be holes. Big holes. I didn't know this at first, but by the second day, the holes were more obvious._

_ Everywhere we turned, we were met with more trees and more plants. I suggested for us to walk in a straight line, to cut through everything in our path. We tried that, too, but didn't get very far. Eventually we hit really high walls of trees and thick vines. When we climbed those and looked over, there were still trees everywhere. It was like being stuck in an ocean of trees. It was then, on the second day, that I started to think we would be stuck in the swamp for a long time. I understood the structure of the swamp was changing, almost like it was alive. I remember Katara, looking at me, horrified, like I could fix it. I would be lying if I said that I didn't want to. _

* * *

In the morning, the screeching and chirping of birds woke Zuko, well before any sunlight had poured through the canopies above them. He sat up, noticing the sharp pain in his back from sleeping on rock, and grimaced. Katara was still inside her tent with the flap shut. From the outline of her body inside, Zuko gathered that she was still asleep. There were muffled snores coming through, in synch with her chest rising and falling, breaths he was supposed to be hearing in one of the Fire Nation's most reputable hotels—now, instead, in a wilderness.

He blew a soft burst of fire into his hands; they warmed up before a small gust of wind sent him shivering. Determined, he blew again, harder this time than the first.

It was still dark and the air around him was damp; Zuko shivered. He would ask Katara for a blanket, he decided. It was one thing for Katara to jokingly refuse him entrance to her tent—which, frankly, he didn't mind—but it was another matter completely when she had brought blankets and a tarp, things that he had foolishly avoided packing.

In the cold he stood up and hugged his shoulders. He kneeled in front of the tent.

"Katara," he started in an urgent whisper. "Katara! Open up. It's cold."

Her outline stretched a fist in the air sleepily and turned to its back.

Zuko stated, a little louder, "Katara. Wake up. I need a blanket."

She pulled at the flap of the tent, eyeing Zuko suspiciously with groggy eyes. She was on her hands and knees, her head poking out of the opening unsurely, barely able to hold herself up. Katara's hair was messy, some of it matted down to her forehead with sweat. Clearly the tent was much warmer than outside. She yawned; Zuko caught the faintest hint of morning breath and wrinkled his nose.

"_What_," she asked flatly, "is possessing you to wake me up this early?"

"I just need a blanket. I was wondering if you had an extra one." Zuko turned his face, suddenly embarrassed, and crossed his arms. Asking for help—specifically from someone like Katara—wasn't something he had ever grown comfortable with. "I'm sorry for waking you, but it's freezing, and I didn't bring anything with me. Plus," he added squarely, "it's too windy to make a fire."

"I only have one blanket," she said. Behind her, he could see the crumpled mass of comforter that had cradled her body moments before. She rubbed her eyes distractedly and held the flap open with an outstretched arm. "You're welcome to share it with me. Just don't get any ideas."

He hesitated, looked at his hands. A full three seconds passed with the flap open wide, and Katara's eyes closed as she rubbed the sleep from them. He crawled in awkwardly and slept as far away as possible, with only enough blanket to cover half his body. In minutes, Katara was asleep again, without acknowledging his presence any further. Her breathy snores undulated and peaked, notably feminine. The tent was, true to Zuko's suspicions, warm; he was amazed how much the temperature had dropped outside from earlier in the evening.

As Katara slept, he watched her from his safe distance, noting the thin white line of drool that had traced a path from one side of her mouth to the bottom of her left cheek. With her eyes closed, she didn't look so threatening; she almost looked harmless. It was Katara's stare that made him nervous so many times before, this deathly quality in her eyes when she was being serious, or when she was intent on damage. Her eyes were the intimidation, the red flag—he remembered her face when she had warned him, shortly after he joined their group, that she would kill him if he hurt Aang. And now, just as then, he was amazed at the magnitude of her love for the Avatar. Perhaps she hadn't always been "in love" with him, but she had loved him more than herself, held him as an untouchable prize that she wanted more than anything to protect. He was a piece of her property, something she owned, something she teased…to have him, to protect him, to love him, to be his lover. It was remarkable to Zuko that Katara and Aang—the ideal couple, the cliché set—existed in a world that was stained with one hundred years of war.

Now, sleeping, Katara didn't look possessive or frightening at all. She was open, naïve, sharing a tent with what used to be her enemy. He had found this type of vulnerability to be one of Mai's more attractive qualities, when they were young and in love, but his relationship with her was over now, and watching Katara brought back the bitter memory of something that had once brought him pleasure and comfort.

Disappointed and embarrassed for staring—and afraid, too, of Katara opening her eyes and screaming that he was being a creep and a pervert—Zuko turned his back to her and forced himself to sleep. He decided in the morning that they were going to get out of here; he wouldn't be able to stand another night depending on Katara's tent to shield him, watching Katara sleep, listening to her uneven snores and oddly timed coughs. He didn't want to share a blanket with a woman who, on more than one occasion, had made him feel inferior and stupid. He didn't want this to develop into something complex; he didn't want the Avatar's questions when he and Katara were finally found. Those gray eyes, noticing the way Katara would glance at Zuko, or Zuko at Katara—the type of esoteric glance that only lovers would share after a night of unbridled passion—they would open wide, and Aang would ask the obvious question, "Did you sleep with my fiancée?" and while Zuko knew he could lie without feeling guilty, he wasn't sure Katara could do the same.

"Of course I slept 'with' her. We were sharing a tent. But nothing happened," Zuko thought to himself then. "We didn't _do_ anything. I asked for an extra blanket, and she only had one."

But then Katara would voice herself, Zuko thought, and that's where the problems would unfold. She would tearfully admit everything, crying softly to herself and holding on to Aang's wrists, as Aang glared with teeming force at Zuko, who would stare at his hands, or the floor, or his feet, or a combination of the three. She would recount with acute detail and biting honesty what had truly happened in the tent, while they were alone in a no-man's land filled with nothing but plants. It was only because they had been trapped in there for so long, without so much as a single third person to mediate them. It was as much her fault as his—and didn't Aang see? It was a mistake. All a big mistake, horrible in its existence, merciless in its guilt. As Katara confessed with her back to Zuko, Zuko would notice the way her figure was bent before Aang, the way she threw her arms around his neck and begged him to forgive her, the way Aang's hands would snake around her waist. There was no question; she was his Katara, and he forgave her, but he did not forgive Zuko, who—no doubt—had forced his fiancée into such a position. They would kiss openly in front of him, use their tongues; excitedly, Katara would bite Aang's ear and whisper something, and his grip on her waist would lower to her backside. Then Zuko would turn his face and go back to his needlessly ornate Fire Nation palace, where all of the women in the Fire Nation waited to idolize him. He would sit somewhere, by himself, head in his hands, unfathomably lonely—relishing the memory of Katara and Aang, before him, a few steps away from making love, not caring that he was there to watch their every move, to calculate their smallest intimacies.

This was what he dreamt. It bothered him immensely, and in the morning, he tried very hard to forget it. He dried the sweat that had accumulated on his temples and over his lip with the folded edge of the blanket. He heard Katara singing to herself outside, bent over a fire.


	3. Mother

What Happens in the Swamp

**Summary**: "What happened with Zuko…Aang, it was a one night thing. You don't understand. We had been there for weeks." Sometimes she apologized without realizing what she was apologizing for. Exploration of the Swamp, years later. Kataang, Zutara, Rated M.

**Author's Note**: review meh plz.

* * *

-3-

_I missed Aang. Unbearably. By the third day, I was desperate to see him. To taste him. To contact him somehow, or hear his voice, or even touch something he had touched…it caused me physical agony. I noticed strands of hair—more strands than usual—brushing out of my head the morning of the third day, when I submerged myself in a filthy pool of still water for an excuse to be naked, for an excuse to be clean. In the water I imagined Aang's mouth on my neck and I shivered even though bulbs of sweat were seeping out of me—out of the forest all together. It was so hot. So unbearably hot._

_I felt someone behind me and looked to see an encompassing wall of trees, vines limp, expectant. I felt embarrassed; I bit my knuckle. I thought of Aang and his smooth, light skin. His arrows. The muscles that comprised his chest. The way I felt whenever he touched me…soft, flying. I thought of his reaction to me. I imagined putting my hand on his cheek…touching the tip of his ear with my finger. Our lips, centimeters apart, a silent film of desire laced between them. Then I looked down, and there was a thin stream of blood in the shape of my two front teeth over my hand. I dipped it in the water stupidly, and then, remembering that I shared the pool with various strains of bacteria, I pulled it out. _

_Sometimes I did things without really thinking them through._

* * *

"We're going to die out here."

He was waiting to hear it from her. Katara's voice had a certain clarity to it, a kind of hollow, unwavering ring. Sureness. It was the same quality he had heard in his mother's voice—even, sometimes, in Azula's. Zuko blinked. Day four already. Katara had lost her sense of hopefulness and sat down, slumping over a broad rock covered in moss. She had removed her kimono a day ago to wash it, and woke up to find it full of holes. Hornet-moths had gotten to it while it was drying.

Zuko had given her a long tunic from his bag, because she refused to dirty whatever she had left—insisting, instead, that she save it, since they were going to be "stuck in this bitch swamp forever," adding with a cynical pitch that "at least one of them" had to look good for the duration. So she had accepted his tunic, and hadn't taken it off since. It came up mid-thigh and was generous in providing Zuko with a clear outline of Katara's breasts, which—as much as he hated to notice—had grown considerably since their time apart. Being stuck in a swamp would have been far less distracting if Katara wasn't the least bit sexy and if she wasn't wearing his clothing. But she was gorgeous and nearly naked, and Zuko felt disgusting after feeling a warm swirl in his stomach whenever she sat a certain way.

"Don't say that. We won't die."

She was looking at him intently now, hands grasping her bare, slightly dirtied knees. "We're going to die," she repeated. "I didn't think it would end like this."

"It's not going to end," he stated in response, turning his face.

Then she covered her mouth and, suddenly furious, stood up quickly and crossed her arms. "I'm sorry—I'm not trying to be melodramatic. But I don't understand _why_ this would happen to me _again_! People fly over this swamp all the time! There are never any reports of people disappearing over here. Oh, God…" She sat down again, this time with her back to him, and drew her knees to her chin. "We're going to become a one-in-a-million statistic."

"If you have that attitude—"

"I know what I'm talking about!" she interrupted brashly, still not facing him. Instead she turned her face at a sharp angle; Zuko saw the corner of her left eye peering in his direction. She almost looked like an animal—one of the broad assortment they had encountered in their four days of physical and mental torture and aggravation. A sleek, seething flavor of cat. What a work, thought Zuko, is woman.

"I'm just saying," he returned, as calmly as he thought possible, "that maybe we should keep our hopes up. It hasn't even been a week yet. And we've only mapped out two possible routes to the edge of the forest." He paused and took a breath, sending a hand to his hair. Being hopeful was the girl's job, not his, and this position was sickening. "It'll be okay," he promised vaguely. "Everything will be fine."

She answered with an unexpected viciousness, "You don't understand," before sighing and covering her face. Zuko saw her back twitch, as though she had drawn a sharp breath, something akin to sobbing. He stared at his feet because he felt he couldn't look at her without expressing some form of sympathy. Feet, shoes—large and awkward…they couldn't have looked more out of place against the soft, fertile ground of the swamp. Expensive shoes, he thought, for nothing.

"I saw my mother this morning."

"Katara…"

"She said, 'Baby, if you die—'"

"It was just a figment," Zuko murmured back. "It's your imagination—"

"She's here!" Her voice broke between words; this fierce undercut in tone forced Zuko to look up from his shoes. She was standing now, looking at him. He pressed his upper row of teeth hard against his lip. Katara's eyes were wet.

"Do you have any idea how confusing it is to be here—with _you_?" She was shaking her head, unable to take her eyes away from his. "My mother," she muttered darkly. "No matter what kind of treaty we have between us—no matter how good a friend you've been…it doesn't change the fact that I still miss her. That I love her, and that she was taken away from me." Zuko looked at his feet again, embarrassed to admit to himself that Katara was scaring him. "I was a fucking child, you bastards." And she wilted; her knees buckled and his tunic spread around her like a ring of colored water. She put a hand to her face, another to the ground to stabilize her posture, and wept—screaming loudly once before beginning a rambling chain of whimpers. Zuko covered his eyes with an open palm and looked away.

From her spot on the ground, she could see his uncomfortable shifting and his clumsy, lanky stance. What could she do to stop herself? It was inevitable, untouchable…her mother had appeared this morning, as real as the trees and vines and mud, dressed just as Katara had remembered. Katara had wept knowing the vision was fake—but there it was, speaking to her, touching her cheek…

The entire instance was too real for Katara's taste. And here she was: sobbing like a misbehaved child in front of Zuko, a man she hadn't seen in what felt like ages, who probably couldn't care less about her well-being or the fate of her mother. Here she was. Without her mother. Without Sokka. No, without Aang—!

Aang! Aang, who always knew what to say to fix it…

She nearly jumped when she felt a broad hand on her shoulder, and looked behind her to find Zuko's square fingers clasped firmly next to her neck. It was not a warm touch—not something Aang would have done—and yet it felt soothing, stabilizing. An unchangeable constant. His left hand wiped the wetness from her cheek. She closed her eyes and frowned deeply, bothered by his presence, bothered by showing him a weakness that she associated only with her fragmented childhood. He was kneeling.

"Please stop crying," he commanded gently. He continued after a slight hesitation, "I saw my mother this morning too. If anything, it reminds me that we need to get out of here. Not give up and scream about it."

She must have given him a look without meaning to, because he rolled his eyes and forced a smile. It was one-sided, Katara thought, but heartfelt. Almost endearing.

"Just trust me, okay?" His hand was heavy—a man's hand, large, padded with thick ligaments and thick skin. She was impressed by his size from her relative position on the floor, and looked away to avoid disclosing this to him. "Just please. Please stop crying. I don't like hearing you cry."

"I don't like it either," she managed. "I don't like crying in front of you."

He helped her to her feet; she swayed dizzily and he held her by the forearms to keep her straight. Since her episode, she had avoided eye contact with him. But their gazes met and he smiled again, perhaps in an attempt to lift the mood. He looked stupid and oblivious, a gentle giant, open for attack. Katara regretted everything and felt a warm rush of red flare against her cheeks. She needed to have some control, she decided then. She needed to regain her reserve. This would have never happened under normal circumstances, after all. But the swamp...she had felt it since they landed here: a blood curdling release that swam laps in her heart—this feeling of invisibility, of death, of helplessness.

He let her go. "Then don't cry, and we'll be in agreement."

"It's always been agreements with you," she said, smirking. She crossed her arms, placing her hands were his hands were seconds ago. She breathed. "It's always been so business-like. So cut and dry."

"It doesn't have to be," he said.

"But it does," she replied. "It does. It has to be."

"Whatever you like," he returned blankly. "All I know is that we need to get out of here."

Katara's eyes were still, staring ahead, into a deep crevice that Zuko had cut with his knife into a wall of vines. "What was your mother wearing," she began, "when you saw her?"

"I can't remember," he lied. "I didn't just see my mother."

"Me neither," she said. "I saw Aang, too."


	4. Week

**Summary**: "What happened with Zuko…Aang, it was a one night thing. You don't understand. We had been there for weeks." Sometimes she apologized without realizing what she was apologizing for. Exploration of the Swamp, years later. Kataang, Zutara, Rated M.

* * *

-4-

_I don't know what possessed Mai to leave me, but it must have been something big. She said, It doesn't feel like it used to feel, or something like that. It was such a hard decision, she said. So confusing. So heartbreaking. A really sad story, if you had the patience to listen to it. A series of complexities and loveless interactions that took place between us where she realized—after a considerable portion of our relationship—that I was not right—but no. It was not me, she said, but her. It was her realization and her thinking and planning and wondering and sitting and our sex. It was good sex, but there was something else about it too. Something 'else' that was missing, or present but not the right way. And it was not impulse that had driven her—not passion, or desire, or lust, or yearning—but time. Time, in its fickle inability to remain constant, in its fickle inability to remain fickle. It was time, she said. It was time the whole time. _

_Time, like Mai, was a bitch. _

* * *

An entire week, she thought, and no sign of Aang. It was amazing how accustomed they had grown to each other in the meantime. Zuko was reliable and stable—she had anchored herself in the intricate details, a daily part of their routine.

He woke up first, rolled up the tarp he slept on or—if it had rained—folded his end of the blanket and put his pillow away. He stretched—Katara had once awakened early enough to see him—stretched his fingers towards his toes and then reached backwards, then towards the sky, then to his sides. He would collect wood for the fire—always just enough—and light it, taking the thin stone they were using as a makeshift pan and placing the kettle Katara had brought with her right on top. Tea would be ready by the time she came out of the tent, groggy and yawning.

"Oh," she would say sleepily. "You're up?"

Or, more recently, "Still nothing?"

It would be a lie to say she wasn't angry, or at least concerned, about Aang's apparent disappearance. Where was he? The conference was over, and she should have been home by now. But she wasn't. If that wasn't cause for alarm, Katara wasn't sure what was. No sign of Appa's outline in the sky. No team of Earth Kingdom officials. Nothing. Nothing at all.

"What do you think is taking them so long?" she asked him that morning over tea.

"I'm sure they're looking," he replied shortly. "You can't expect them to find us so quickly. They have no idea where we could be. I mean, for all they know we..." He hesitated and took a sip from his cup. "I mean. I don't know. You can't expect them to look for us here."

"What were you going to say?"

"What?"

"What, what?" She was looking at him then; her eyes fixated on his chin. He wiped it with the back of his hand casually and felt some wetness from the tea. "You were saying something," she said, not taking her eyes off of him. "For all they know? For all they know what?"

Zuko didn't answer right away, and that was enough for Katara to drop it. She looked at the tea cup in her hands. It was so lucky that she had come prepared—what had prodded her to bring two cups? The kettle? What had made her reach for the tarp and the tent and the pillows? The extra, extra sets of kimonos? The soap, the teabags, the brush, the towels, the bandages? Most of these things would have been provided at the hotel, and yet she had diligently brought them. Expectant.

"I have four teabags left," she stated suddenly then, turning her attention to the half-full kettle. "And two bars of soap...how long will that last? Maybe we should start reusing teabags."

"We aren't going to die without tea."

"I'm not saying that we would."

"You are worrying for nothing."

"I just want this to end," she admitted quietly. After a shaky seven days with Zuko, she felt as if there was nothing she couldn't tell him. The tears, the screaming, the hallucinations, the desire she felt for Aang when she sat alone, or when she slept in the tent as far away from Zuko as the space would allow. What a delicious series of circumstances, she had thought. Strangers who hated each other, entangled in a damp forest, with nothing but a few irrational supplies, and a soggy tea bag, and a dull dagger, and dirty clothes, and nothing to say.

"You think I don't?" he was poking at the fire now, with a slim twig that he held like a pencil. "But we have to be patient."

"I know." She sighed impatiently. It was cloudy this morning; the sun hadn't come up or—if it had—they couldn't see it through the canopy. It was dark. If it wasn't for the fire under the kettle, she wouldn't be able to see a meter in front of her.

"We used to play a game when I was younger." Katara picked up a smooth stone, oval in shape, with a thin film of moss over half of it. "Everyone has to say something in the dark. We pass around a rock, and if you're holding it, you tell a joke, or a fact, or a secret. It was back when we were younger...it's so fun. I haven't played it in years."

He smirked with the corner of his mouth and stated lightheartedly—with a hint of sarcasm—"I guess when you're older, you find more enjoyable things to do in the dark."

She laughed, taken aback, and nodded. "I guess you do."

"But that is out of the question here."

"Yes, exactly. So this game is perfect."

Zuko looked at her quizzically. There were shadows over his face from the fire, and an unkempt brush of facial hair that somewhat resembled a beard. He hadn't brought a razor; she had, but was weary of asking him if he wanted it.

She tossed the stone in her hand and caught it between her fingers and palm, posing the challenge: "You want to play?"


	5. Stone

**What Happens in the Swamp**

_________

* * *

_

-5-

__

When I was younger there was a girl in our tribe who everyone talked about.

Soraya, this woman with thick hair and big eyes. Her figure was as sleek as a fish, and her lips...even as a child, I recognized her mouth as something morbidly oversexed; it always looked as though someone had been sucking on them. She wore her clothing a little too tight. There was a joke once that men were afraid to stand up next to her. I didn't get it until I grew up.

_When I was ten, she was some sixteen, and pregnant. Back then it was a big deal. People gossiped and gossiped; her mother was ashamed and her father practically killed himself for his lost honor. Soraya didn't seem to mind; she was a little ditzy. Always had this dreamy expression. She would look out over the horizon, across the sea, and smile a lot to herself. It wasn't until her stomach started filling in like a gourd that fear replaced nonchalance. But her child was born much too early, and Soraya died in the process._

_Whenever I feel lust towards any man—even towards Aang, where the matter is expected—I always have this little flicker of discomfort in my head, named Soraya, who warns against temporary passion. Instills permanent fear. I didn't realize this until recently, but Soraya—for me, and perhaps for my entire tribe—represents the biggest flaw of woman. Her inability to make rational decisions. The silence of her mind when her heart begins to converse. _

* * *

"You can't talk when the other person has the stone," she said. "That's the only rule."

"And you can say anything?"

"Of course."

Zuko rolled his eyes; she couldn't see it because of the lighting, but was able to pick up on the cynicism when "Oh, boy," barely escaped his mouth.

"It'll be fun," she assured. She sat cross-legged next to him. He detected the faintest hint of perfume, overpowered by feminine perspiration, the smell of her long full hair. It bothered him that he wanted to smell more of it, and in response—as she sat—he turned his face.

She offered, "I'll go first," and paused momentarily, turning the stone in right hand, between her fingers. "When you add two and two together, you get four." She reached for his hand in the darkness; it was in his lap, over his knee. She gave him the stone. Her hands were soft. Velvety.

"That's all there is to it?" He laughed. "Okay. The earth spins on an axis."

She nodded, smiling a little, and took the stone between her palms. She resituated herself, shuffling closer to him. "Okay. I'm afraid of rabbit-mice."

"Ha!"

She slapped her index finger to her lips, shushing him. "Only I'm allowed to talk, until you're holding the rock. Remember?"

He nodded. She handed it to him.

"That's...cute," he muttered, shaking his head. "I'm not really afraid of much of anything. At least, not anymore."

She looked up at him. It would be a lie for Zuko to say she wasn't attractive, even in the state of gradual physical degeneration. With her hair a mess, and her skin tinted with dust...it was dangerously close to exhaustion, it looked like. In another situation, he would have used the term 'sexy,' but he was alone with her now, and knew better not to tempt himself.

Her eyes were the only thing that hadn't changed. Despite her mood swings and temper tantrums—despite her insults and bickering and unfairness—her eyes, clear, blue, perpetually watery, reminded him of her unbreakable innocence. Hope.

"I was afraid of my father, but now I'm not. It's done with." Then he turned his face for fear of upsetting or disgusting her, and handed her the stone without looking. She took it swiftly.

"I miss Aang," she said. They had been whispering, but this confession was far louder than any of the others, and took on a tone of its own. "I miss him so much."

"I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault."

"I'm breaking the rules by talking, aren't I?"

"You are," she replied, seriously but not entirely so. "Don't speak. I still have it."

She looked at the stone in her hands—its perfect shape, its odd coloring, its spiny moss. "I don't know what's wrong with me," she continued. "To be honest...I can't explain it. It's like...I miss him more than I know what to do with, but I don't mind waiting for him to get me. I did mind at first. A lot. I was angry he didn't show up the second day. Because I hated being with you. You're so fucking annoying." She caught herself and looked up, lips parted. "I'm sorry—that must sound wrong...especially since you've been such a good companion over the last week...I have no right to say that to you. I'm sorry. But at first I hated the situation. I thought of it as a hell...I guess what I'm trying to say is—I don't know. Thank you. Thank you for being stuck in hell with me." She smiled—it was dark enough for him not to see it—and handed him the game piece.

It was warm from her hands, and Zuko—for reasons unknown to him—felt unbearably sleepy. He yawned and covered his mouth with the crook of his elbow; then he pretended to yawn a second time to buy time. What was he to say to that? That he was so regretful she was here? That he was disgusted with his thoughts since the start of the ordeal? He hated it—hated how animal his instincts were, hated how attractive Katara was, how beautiful she always looked without even trying, how angry he was that she was taken, and he was not. He was furious with the fact that Mai had left him—to his suspicions, for another man, possibly a good friend of his—and even more furious that he had let her get away without so much as a word of reprisal.

"Once you asked me what my mother was wearing when I saw her," he recalled softly, looking in her eyes. "She was wearing this long Fire Nation robe. It was the last thing I saw her in before she left. My father kept saying she was alive after that, but I never found her. I think the fact that I saw her means that she's dead, and now I can say that I truly feel for you." She knitted her brows, intent. "It hurts," he finished embarrassingly, turning his face. "And I'm so sorry."

They passed it back and forth.

"The first time we were in the Swamp I thought it was a ploy—some sort of trap—from you, to catch Aang," she would say. "I can't believe it...even after all this time...some days it still feels as though you're our biggest enemy, even if you're not."

"The fact that you didn't accept me after I joined your group was the hardest thing for me, because I felt that...after Ba Sing Sei, your approval was the only thing that mattered."

Zuko had let the stone drop. It stood near his toes as he sat cross-legged, facing her now, their knees practically touching. There was light streaming in from the canopy, and he could see the finer details of her face without the glow from underneath the kettle.

"Why?" she asked quickly. "Why me?"

"Because I guess I must have really let you down...Aang nearly died." A bird screamed in the background; all around them, signs of morning life began to rustle awake. A set of lilies opened their petals greedily in the background, next to her tent. "He nearly died, and it could have been prevented."

"Oh."

Zuko wiped a set of sweat droplets from his forehead with the back of his hand. It was so hot—so unbearably hot—sitting this close to her in his full attire, with the sun coming through, and the fire so close. He wasn't sure if she was sweating; from her smell earlier, she probably was, but he felt uncomfortable to ask. Just the idea of sweat accumulating on her body, moving down her curves in finite, glistening tracks, her temperature, the salts in her perspiration, the blotches on her sheets, growing darker, wet...

He pulled his collar and stood up abruptly. "It's not dark enough to play the game anymore," he reported quickly, stuttering a little on the word 'anymore.' "We should go do something else. Maybe finish the map we started on Saturday. Or get breakfast."

"But—"

"I'll go hunting. We've had fish this entire week because of you. Take a break. I'll see you in two hours."

He trudged awkwardly away, his dagger at his side. She sat with a detached expression and watched him walk, one foot in front of the other, carefully, stepping over tangled roots and thick stems. The dagger hit his hip rhythmically as he made his way. She turned her face and crawled, with some difficulty, back into the tent.


	6. Water

What Happens in the Swamp

**Summary**: "What happened with Zuko…Aang, it was a one night thing. You don't understand. We had been there for weeks." Sometimes she apologized without realizing what she was apologizing for. Exploration of the Swamp, years later. Kataang, Zutara, Rated M.

* * *

-6-

_She wasn't a virgin our first time, which was a shock to me, because I thought I had been the only man in her life. "There was someone after you were banished; it was a mistake. I was young. I didn't know." She told me this while she smoked my pipe—oddly masculine for the circumstance—and pulled her silk robe over her body, standing up. She looked at me with pity. Everything she had said, she had said simply, like I was stupid. Maybe I was. There aren't many good girls left in the world, and I know this now, and I knew it then. But Mai was supposed to be different. Mai was supposed to be mine._

_

* * *

_

Sweat. So much sweat, and heat, and sweat. The swamp was practically an inferno, it was so warm during the day. The shade from the canopy didn't help things either. Rather, it made the conditions on the ground moist and dark and damp. And unbearably hot.

"We're going to melt," Katara complained. It had been ten days and she was growing bored with the situation. Their daily schedule was nothing more than eating, sleeping, and trying desperately to find a way out. But the fervor had vanished; unlike the first week, she no longer cared if she died here. Indeed, depression had sunken in where uninhibited hope had been. Aang wasn't here yet, and she was growing worried and angry.

"You would think I would be used to this," he replied, resting on his back. They were laying in a flat expanse of tall grass; something small—perhaps ticks—nuzzled at his bare skin. "We should go swimming."

"The water here is filthy."

"You can bend it."

She sighed in an uninterested matter.

"Think about it. You can filter all of the dirt; we'll be able to swim. You can cool it down. It would be a God send."

She considered, rolled to her side to face him. "That's an odd choice of words."

"What is?"

"'God send'...I used to use that all the time with Sokka, to describe Aang."

He hesitated. There was a large part of him that did not want to speak about Aang, at the moment. "He's quite a bit of a God send, I guess," he stated at last. "All things considered."

"I always used to wonder what took him so long," she confessed softly. She rested her head on her hand, propped on an elbow. He noticed that she wasn't really looking at him; beyond him, through him...her eyes rested on the spot between his eyes, on the bridge of his nose. From this angle she still looked 14, and confused, and young. "I mean...100 years, really? It's not like he had control over it or anything...if he had come a little earlier, things would have been so much easier."

"It was meant to be this way," he remarked, and his tone was heavy. Almost sad.

"I can clean the water if you want."

He turned to find her standing.

"The water, for swimming. It's a good idea. Come with me."

He stood slowly. Katara posed with an acute teenaged awkwardness, in her bindings, watching him from the corner of her eyes as she bent the water. Zuko tried very hard not to look at her as he removed his tunic. Soon the water was chilled and clean, a pool between rocks in a little cavern; when they first got here they had used this area to sleep, as it provided shelter from the rain coming through the canopy.

They sat close to each other on the small stone ledge above the pool, then submerged together, both appropriately sighing 'ah!' at the contact of the water. Zuko was laughing, and Katara caught on. They laughed loudly and their laughter echoed.

"This feels so good!" she cried, bending her knees so that the water reached her chin.

"I told you it was a good idea."

"I guess you did." She smiled sweetly at him; Zuko returned the gesture and turned his face.

"So hard to believe it's been ten days..."

"We shouldn't talk about this here," he said abruptly. "Pretend we're not in the swamp... pretend we're in some resort some where... relaxing. We aren't lost and we aren't miserable, and it's only been two days, not ten."

Her eyes opened wide at this; she tilted her head. "Since when are you an optimist?" she inquired, smiling lopsidedly. "What happened to depressed-angry-pessimistic Zuko?"

"He spent ten days in a swamp," he answered, still not facing her, "and had an attitude adjustment."

She grinned, tried to meet his eyes. The pool had jagged rocks beneath it. If they were to walk to certain parts, the rock would cut their feet. So they were limited to a small corner, with oddly shaped boulders behind them, and no room to swim. Zuko was attempting to keep his gaze somewhere far off, refusing to focus. The cavern was dark, and the water was reflecting on the ceiling because of sunlight coming through the boulders above the pool... but there was still enough light to see the dark part of her breasts through the wet fabric. The triangle between her legs. Zuko swallowed.

"What kind of attitude adjustment?" She was bending a strip of water between her fingers, like a string.

"It's hard to say. I guess I learned to look at the bright side of things by force. I mean. I don't know."

"What is the bright side of this?" She looked up at him, genuinely curious, and without willing to, he met her eyes. Every shade between blue and gray... sparkling in contrast to the water, Katara looked most alive in her element. He swallowed again but didn't turn away.

_I'm not stuck here alone_, he thought. _I have you with me. You're beautiful but you complain nonstop. You can be the biggest bitch on the planet when you start to nag. You have a hypocritical complex and it annoys the fucking piss out of me. But I love that you are here; I would have gone crazy without you. _

He was not thinking when he moved next. He heard her sigh something indecipherable, but didn't stop.


	7. And

What Happens in the Swamp

**Summary**: "What happened with Zuko…Aang, it was a one night thing. You don't understand. We had been there for weeks." Sometimes she apologized without realizing what she was apologizing for. Exploration of the Swamp, years later. Kataang, Zutara, Rated M.

* * *

-7-

_After your first kiss you don't really think much of kissing. Same thing with sex, but on a different level. You grow up, a boy kisses you, touches you, teaches you how to be a woman; you learn to bend for him, open for him, love him with every tissue holding your heart and brains together._

_My first kiss with Aang wasn't spectacular. Frankly I didn't like it. It was closed mouthed, anxious, warm. His lips were pursed so closely together that it didn't feel like much of a kiss at all. Of course at the time, I didn't know any better, so I didn't consider it bad. But it wasn't good either._

_Then Zuko kissed me. And it's like Gran Gran told me when I had asked her about kissing ages ago, when I was only twelve or thirteen. She laughed, "You'll kiss a lot of boys in your lifetime, darling. But there is that one good kiss that you will remember always. You are only kissed like that once."_

_

* * *

_

She wanted to watch but couldn't, because she had anticipated this from day one, but hadn't wanted to confront in then. There was hope they would have been saved; that had dissolved since then. Zuko had placed his hand on her neck; he was looking past her, to her left. She watched the water, afraid to meet his eyes.

"What are you doing?" she murmured, quietly enough so that he didn't hear it, or didn't appear to. His actions were quiet, precise. With Aang everything had always felt rushed and excited, as if he could hardly believe that he had Katara for himself. But with Zuko... it was as though he was showing her his most private, complicated self; a self that he himself didn't understand wholly. Her breath caught in her throat when he pressed his lips to her neck.

"Don't say anything," he said against her skin. Despite the heat, she could feel the hairs of her arm stand on end. Was it firebending that made his breath so hot? Suddenly a wave of self-conscious pity overcame her; for the first time in her life, Katara wondered if she was good enough.

"What are you doing?" she asked again.

"I just asked you not to speak."

Angered, she lifted her hands to push him away. How dare he ask her not to speak? How dare he touch her?

But—!

He held her wrists firmly and pushed her back. The interest of his movements wasn't the movements themselves; rather, their entire conversation was carried out without looking at one another. It was this avoidance that amplified movement, magnified his touch, closed the spaces between them. "You aren't stronger than me, Katara," he said.

"What makes you think you can—"

Zuko silenced her with a forceful kiss on the mouth. His hands moved quickly through her hair, leaving her wrists awkwardly raised near his shoulders. He moved her closer to him; she was a weightless doll compared to his strength, and for the most part she allowed herself to be led.

Carefully, with a delicacy unlike that of his hungry, tongued kissing, she intertwined her fingers on the back of his neck. For a moment she didn't move; instead she studied his movements. His initial grace was lost; his hands moved jerkily through her hair, then down her back, and with caution, to her stomach. His tongue was flat when he lapped it against hers, and his lips were cold, but professional. It would be a lie to say that the kissing wasn't enjoyable. After some uncertainty, she kissed back, with more force, holding strands of his wet hair between her fingers. True to her nature she was more vocal than he was, but her 'Ah!' and 'Oh!' eventually triggered sighs and grunts of satisfaction from him as well.

Terrifyingly enough, their kissing could be described perfectly with the term 'compatible.' This came as an unwelcome surprise to both, but loneliness and desire and heat had finally overcame politeness, and standing half-naked in a pool of water had proven to be the last straw. In the swamp, they were elemental, human, animal.

The invitation had been sent out, and after Katara had determined Zuko's worth, she took initiative. In the water she trailed her fingers down his back, along his spine, and worked the fastenings of his undergarment.


	8. Aang

What Happens in the Swamp

**Summary**: "What happened with Zuko…Aang, it was a one night thing. You don't understand. We had been there for weeks." Sometimes she apologized without realizing what she was apologizing for. Exploration of the Swamp, years later. Kataang, Zutara, Rated M.

** A/N:** SEXY TIME coming soon

* * *

-8-

_Uncle used to tell me there are two things you should die for in life, of almost equal importance. _

_ "I have no doubt that you'd be willing to die for your country," he once said to me. "But I would much prefer knowing you would die for a beautiful woman."_

_

* * *

_ Katara stopped. They stood frozen, his mouth pressed furtively on the flex of her neck and shoulder. She shuddered; his hands rested about her waist. She had pulled her hands back and crossed them over her chest.

For a short time they were silent, and then he pulled back slowly, his arms at his sides. He looked at her.

"Sorry."

"Don't be."

"I...I didn't think—"

"No, you didn't."

"Katara," he started. Zuko broke eye contact, sending his gaze to the boulders surrounding the mouth of the cave. The water was flashing reflections on it—bright, watery strokes. He felt his stomach pull into knots.

She wore a distinctively unreadable expression, arms crossed firmly. She put her hand on his cheek and turned his eyes forcibly to her. But her hand didn't linger. After he was facing her she crossed her arms again.

"You think I haven't thought about this?" she asked quietly, smiling a little. "Of course I have... I know you have too, now. But... this isn't right."

He didn't answer.

"If Aang—"

"Aang isn't here," Zuko finished, louder than he intended. "And he might never get here. We could be stuck in this swamp forever."

Her eyes narrowed. "Don't say that."

"It's the truth." Attentively, he took her hands in his, and smiled sadly when she didn't pull them away. "I've thought about this, thought about you. And we might not get out of this alive. We could die down here. Something might eat us; we could run out of food... I mean, I'm not trying to convince you."

"You are."

"No, that's not the case. I'm just thinking realistically. I'm sorry." He hesitated, looked at the boulders again. "I don't know what I was thinking. We don't, if you don't want to."

She was watching their hands, perfectly intertwined over the water. He saw her left eyebrow twitch, a small indication of thought. "You've thought about it?"

"Yes."

"How often?"

"Often enough."

"And it's good?"


	9. City

What Happens in the Swamp

**Summary**: "What happened with Zuko…Aang, it was a one night thing. You don't understand. We had been there for weeks." Sometimes she apologized without realizing what she was apologizing for. Exploration of the Swamp, years later. Kataang, Zutara, Rated M.

**A/N**: I apologize for the length of these chapters; just trying to get out as many as I can before uni starts up again! I promise they'll get longer; thank you all for your reviews, messages, and alerts!

* * *

-9-

_There was a point during the engagement where Aang expressed how much he wanted children, how great it would be to have ten little airbenders running around. Maybe it wasn't ten... I don't know, some ridiculous number that my body would never agree with. I liked growing up with just me and Sokka, and I figured at most I would have two children, maybe three. _

_There was the whole repopulation aspect of it, the last waterbender of the Southern Water Tribe and the last airbender in the world. But there's something about Aang... he just has so much love, all of this love he needs to share with people, with everything, with the universe. He bursts with love, screams it, has more than the normal volume of love any one person should have; is it fitting that he was the one to end the Great War? _

_There were always days where I wished he was a little selfish. I imagined how different it would be if all he wanted was me. _

_We were sitting on a balcony after some governmental meeting in the Earth Kingdom, about six months ago. He was holding my hands, smiling, looking over the city with this hopeful, contented expression. He said, 'I've always loved the city. So much life. Look.'_

_Underneath us there was a mule cart and a merchant; the mule wasn't moving, just standing there huffing, kicking its hooves in the dirt. There were kids playing around a construction site some way off, hanging from the unfinished floors of a concrete apartment building, and a few dogs chasing after one another, and a family of three, sitting on a bench having rice. It was deep in the evening, and there were lights and lanterns glittering from houses, from the hills further away, from the walkways. I remember how happy he looked. _

_'Beautiful,' said Aang._

_I did not grow up in the city; I have never felt comfortable in one. Our social life was limited to a few igloos and tents in a tiny circle of some fifteen families. _

_I don't know why I said it, but I did: 'Would you die for this city, Aang?'_

_'It's not like it's Ba Sing Sei,' he laughed._

_'I don't mean it in terms of its importance.'_

_'Then what do you mean?'_

_'I don't know.'_

_'I am in love with the world,' he said thoughtfully, taking my hand. He kissed it. Grinned. 'In love with you.' _

_Aang was gentle whenever he touched me, whenever we kissed, whenever he held me at night. If there was ever a chance he was hurting me or doing something wrong he would stop, ask in a whisper if I was okay, if he should keep going, if this felt good, and what exactly did I want him to do next? And is this time better than last time? And it didn't hurt, did it? _

_It was not that this was bad; Aang was attentive to what I liked, careful not to repeat what I didn't. And in a lot of ways we were very compatible as lovers, more so as friends, and completely as a family. I don't know what I wanted him to do. But in the moments between his movements on top of me, in the space between our lips before we kissed, in the flutter of his eyelids when he turned... there was an expanse—great, white, glowing. A question, an answer, a mistake, a fear—!_

_Was it perverse or human to want Aang to hurt me? Was it disgusting or relieving to know he never would? _


	10. Garden

What Happens in the Swamp

**Summary**: "What happened with Zuko…Aang, it was a one night thing. You don't understand. We had been there for weeks." Sometimes she apologized without realizing what she was apologizing for. Exploration of the Swamp, years later. Kataang, Zutara, Rated M.

* * *

-10-

_Mai's grandfather owned a garden house in a valley, some twenty miles north of the palace. He had bought it when he was young, nurtured it until it flowered into a twisted, colorful jungle, held together with vines and branches; the ambitions of a young general, a gift to his ill wife._

_In the center there was a small, flat building, made of concrete and brick, also encased in plants and leaves. He had let us stay there once, on the condition that we take care of the orchids in the back. Mai described that tiny flat as beautiful, sacred. For the entire week we stayed there, all I wanted was her._

_She squirmed, sat up. She grimaced; we were being stupid, she said, not yet married. And what did I expect to happen? She held my face, kissed me, then asked me to please sleep on the floor. _

_I remember the view of the only window; the tiny speckles of light that dotted my bare arms. It's how it always was, I thought. The holes in life, the stretches, the creases, the cuts, the spaces between your fingers when you spread your hand open and hold your face. _

_It's the only way any light gets through._

_We were married six months afterwards. She was pregnant shortly after. I remember coming home and seeing her bent on the couch, a small pool of blood between her legs. "He's dead," she kept saying, and I thought she was talking about the baby, who was only about three months old then. I said, "It was a boy? How did you know? Did they tell you?"_

_"He's dead! He's dead!"_

_"How did it happen?"_

_"They killed him," she said. "They set the garden on fire."_

_Then I knew she was talking about her grandfather and the forest that had been his paradise. The panic attack had led to the child's premature death. _

_All things considered, I felt that Mai was more devastated at the loss of the garden than her grandfather. "He's dead," she kept repeating. "He's dead! It's dead! Everything is dead."_


	11. Impulse

What Happens in the Swamp

**Summary**: "What happened with Zuko…Aang, it was a one night thing. You don't understand. We had been there for weeks." Sometimes she apologized without realizing what she was apologizing for. Exploration of the Swamp, years later. Kataang, Zutara, Rated M.

* * *

-11-

_Because Aang was technically several decades older than me—rather, because he was from an era far before mine—there was always a gap, conflicting with the current physical gap between us. Two years didn't seem like much, but it was always something small—a little afterthought, "oh, we are only two years apart; no, I'm the older one." Of course, we managed. What other choice was there? Aside from years, we were right for one another. He loved me more than he knew what to do with; I loved him for this love. _

_We were perfection, personified, amplified. _

_Everyone wanted to be us. _

_

* * *

_

The initial impulse was to stop. In the heat, no spontaneity could occur in good conscious. Despite the cold pool of water courtesy of her bending, both Zuko and Katara were still drenched in the heat. It fell from them, filled them, made their movements heavy and untimed. Clumsy.

"Of course it's good," he said. "When you fantasize, everything is good, and nothing is good... it's what you make it to be."

"And you make it to be good?" she asked, arms still crossed firmly over her chest. Zuko recognized that the maneuver was to hide her clearly hardened nipples, and couldn't help but smile perversely to himself. Their time in the swamp had drawn out so many animalistic instincts in him; for whatever reason, he couldn't help it.

"You're...I mean, you..." He scratched his chin dumbly, grimacing a little at the stubble. "It would be hard for anyone to... see you in this condition and not think it wouldn't be good. I mean... I'm rambling... you're just...it would be hard for anyone to—"

"It would be what?"

"It would be hard for any man not to want to... do anything—"

"I think it is hard!" she retorted, resting her arms on the rocky bank of the pool. She smiled smugly and pointed at his anatomy. "You were never good with words, were you, Zuko? Look at my face please."

He pulled his eyes away from her breasts forcibly. "What?"

"What is it going to take for you to shut up? I can't believe how badly you want this."

"Look." He was annoyed and frustrated with her confidence, unaccustomed to cockiness other than his own. "I told you not to talk, and you talked, and it definitely fucked up the moment."

"You fucked up the moment!" Katara spat fiercely, turning her back to him. Perhaps without meaning to, the pool began to warm up as she spoke. "There is no moment! I'm _engaged_... and whatever perverse little fantasies you were entertaining... as flattering as it may be... well, it's wrong. And I'm not saying I'm not attracted to you, or whatever. I mean, this isn't about us. This is about... being true to people. I'm not saying it wouldn't be fun. And I don't know what to tell you, because it's—"

In a desperate attempt to stop the words, to muffle the truth, Zuko grabbed her arm and turned her to him, immediately pressing his mouth to hers again. She faltered back slightly, pushing at his chest in a vain attempt to prevent the inevitable.

"Stop!" she insisted in a teasing whisper. "Zuko..."

He kissed her harder, pulling gently on her upper lip with his teeth. She moaned louder than intended; he took this initiative and rolled his tongue into her mouth.

This kissing was more planned, more exact. She held his face and kissed with effort. Their kissing was a hunger made human: they kissed with teeth, with tongues, with lips, with hands. He lifted her with little difficulty on the bank, spreading her thighs apart.

"What is this establishing?" she whispered haughtily. He worked the fastenings of her chest bindings; when they fell, he lowered his head and caught her left nipple between his teeth.

"Dominance," he mumbled against her skin, against her whimpers. "Permanence, ambivalence, beauty." She pulled his hair, threw her head back.

"A poet, too?" She bent backwards; he pulled himself out of the water and pinned her down with an unnatural ease. "This is bad," she reported weakly. "This is so bad."

"You have an amazing body for a hypocritical bitch," he whispered softly, finding her mouth and kissing it hard. She was untying the clip of his undergarment with fierce haste, widening her legs further for him.

When he had reached the softest part of her womanhood, she covered her eyes with her hands and breathed, in a supressed cry, "You have a skilled tongue for an awkward bastard."


	12. After

What Happens in the Swamp

**Summary**: "What happened with Zuko…Aang, it was a one night thing. You don't understand. We had been there for weeks." Sometimes she apologized without realizing what she was apologizing for. Exploration of the Swamp, years later. Kataang, Zutara, Rated M.

**A/N: **thanks to all who take the time to review/alert/favorite. Your feedback means a lot to me! I apologize for the lengths of these, but I'm writing them between studying for final exams. Expect Swamp AND Letters to be finished before January 20th, 2011 :) I'm starting a new ATLA piece after then; details on my profile page soon!

As always, I love hearing from all of you; always keep me posted on how I'm doing

scorpiaux

* * *

-12-

_I have always preferred the term 'making love' to 'fuck.'_

_Despite this preference in taste, fucking Katara was better than ever making love to Mai. _

_

* * *

_

Katara lost count.

Two days after their initial outburst, and here they were. Two days of nonstop sex. They had abandoned their efforts to find a way out. The map Zuko had been creating was burned in their morning campfire, along with breakfast. Katara was bending over the flame, keeping her eye on the fish she had intended to prepare for them. Zuko grabbed her waist and lifted her kimono. An attack from behind, a few well placed moans from either party, and the fish—as well as the map, and some of their belongings that were placed too close to the fire—had dissolved to ash.

Then, three days. She climbed a tree to pick fruit; he followed her there to help. On a branch above his, he reached up and cupped her breasts in his hands. She looked down to find him smiling and—eager to start one task and finish the tediousness of the other—jumped down, making the basket topple to the earth. The only fruit that she tasted that day branched from him.

They were raunchy, impolite...their crudeness and hunger surprised her. Whenever she was in the mood, he was in the mood, and vice versa, and they were always in the mood. Imagine, she thought. Nothing to do but eat, sleep, and sex. No job, no duties, no fiancé. No civilization, no judgment. No Aang.

Four days. The entire day was spent in her tent. She insisted to be on top.

Five days. Discovery of bending. Afterwards, Zuko used the term 'hot as fuck,' while she murmured, over and over, that it was 'just unreal.'

Six days. Underwater.

What surprised her most is that she had forgotten how many days they had been in the swamp before the first day they 'did it.' She had only started counting from that day. For all she knew, they had been in there for years. It didn't matter at all until he had touched her.

They lost track of their supplies, of the dates, of any remaining rivalry. She regretted not doing this sooner. They only wore clothes so that they would have something to unwrap before the moment of impact; a sort of ceremony, seductive in its courtesy.

On day seven, Appa appeared from between trees, very early in the morning. It was too dark to see outside, but his grunts and complaints could be heard clearly. Katara pushed Zuko off. She reached for her kimono and tied the sash around her waist hurriedly, against Zuko's reprimands that it had to be 'nothing.' She retorted that she would know Appa's noises anywhere.

Sure enough, Appa had found them, but with an empty saddle. Not even Aang's supplies had made it.

After calling Aang's name for just under ten minutes, Katara gave up and turned her attention to Appa. She stroked his nose, conscious of Zuko's stare on her back. "This is kind of scary," she disclosed to him sleepily, covering a yawn with the crook of her elbow.

"He's the Avatar," he mumbled back. It was cold; he had crossed his arms over his bare chest to protect whatever remaining warmth was there, but still his shoulders shivered. Katara could handle this climate—he couldn't. And he knew what she meant. She was not afraid for Aang's safety. She was afraid because now, he was bound to find them.

It was as though she could read these thoughts when he looked at her. "I know he'll be okay," she said at last, not facing him.

"Well, we wanted to get saved. You wanted to be rescued. So here we are."

Her face was expressionless. "I'm glad he finally came."

"Me too."

"I wish I knew where he was, though."

"Possibly close," finished Zuko monotonously. "We should get everything ready." He looked at her body. The kimono only half covered each breast. Her thighs were exposed because of the slits. Barefoot. A flushed faced bed head. Before Appa had arrived, he had filled her multiple times that morning. There was a small trace of this on the back of the kimono as well. He swallowed and uttered, just as expressionlessly, "You should get dressed."

She pulled the sides of the kimono together.


	13. Monster

**What Happens in the Swamp**

**Author's Note**: I want to (again) thank all of those who have stuck with me so far. I really appreciate your patience and I apologize that it's taken me so long to get back to my ffnet account. But expect more stories and updates from me soon! I mean it this time. Also, this is short, but it's proof that I'm still alive and (hopefully) that I can still write. Much overdue love.

* * *

-13-

_I was terrified of what I didn't know as a child; I remember staying up nights with mother next to me, cradling me against her body as she unwrapped the myths Sokka had invented. The artic seals that grew long fangs in the night and came after little girls. The sailors who also came after little girls. And then the penguins, who came after all little things—little girls included. I remember shaking, and her holding me and smoothing my hair, murmuring over and over, 'Such a vivid imagination, Katara. More trouble than it's worth, ah? It isn't that you believe in these monsters. It's that you want them to be alive. It's that you've fallen in love with them. This is how it always happens.'_

_I would tremble, some seven years old and stiff with fear. I remember the words I whispered in my defense: I don't love them, I hate them. They scare me. I can't sleep because of them. I'm afraid of what they're going to do. They are all I think about at night, even if I forget them during the day. I can't admit to thinking about them or Sokka will make fun of me. _

_And it's sad, now, too—these are the things I think about Zuko when he is asleep next to me, naked, spent. I think, 'Monster!' and I want to weep, but I'm too full of my own delusions to be phased by him. I wonder what will happen next._


	14. Yolk

**What Happens in the Swamp**

* * *

-14-

_I used to wonder what love was in terms of a medium: water, plasma, solid, air. Time slows in a medium or speeds up; things get consumed and are never found again. You put your fingers in this medium and you bring them back to you and your thumb is missing. _

_These are the things you think when it is late evening and you're so drunk off your ass you can't tell what color the sky is or if you're even outside looking at the sky or in your room on your bed staring at the ceiling or on top of some palace hooker cursing her father while you're undoing your pants. _

_Since we landed in the swamp I defined Katara and Aang's medium: sugar-coated interpretive dance, fruit tart honey lilied, sweet-smelling love, knows-no-lies love, no-other-in-the-universe love. The love they save for theaters. People pay to get into theaters to see that kind of love because it doesn't exist outside the theater—it's too good, too human and too heartfelt, and people pay for things like that because on some level we all want to watch the 'good' sex, not the bad._

_I always told the people who asked—well, Uncle—that I loved Mai but that I couldn't love her after what she did. But the truth is, you can't really ever use the word 'loved'…as much as you hate to admit it, if you love someone once—for real, like in theaters—you never actually stop loving them. There is no past tense. If you can ever think of them without love, you never loved to begin with. This was deduced from Uncle after pots and pots of jasmine tea._

_You misplace the love in a medium but you can always swim back down to the bottom and retrieve it when the time comes. It's why I couldn't kill Azula. It's why I came back after I betrayed Uncle. It's why I still haven't given up searching for my mother, though it has been years. It's why I have my father locked up in a cell instead of twenty feet inside the earth and dead. Mai took up space but when I think of her now all I can ever feel is cool indifference and a pang of sadness for lost time._

_Theater love. Public love. I love Katara—not as a woman, but what she is made out of. I love Katara's molecules and her chemistry. I love the anatomy that holds her brains together. She has something I don't have and I fooled myself into thinking I could take it if we slept together. But I still haven't broken her and she hasn't broken me, and we're standing as tall and as naked as the trees that have imprisoned us since day one. I love her. It's why I made the decision never to tell Aang what happened. Not for his sake and his bright colored, falsified medium—but for her. For all the bad things she thinks that she keeps hidden in the dark. For all the lies she has covered under layers, for all the lies that seep between her fingers like rotting memories, soft decomposing earth, grainy, with so many oblong pieces sticking out. Even Katara herself can't make sense of it all._

_She can tell him if she wants, but I won't breathe a word. _

* * *

She felt her heart rattle between her throat and her stomach when Aang stumbled out from between the vines. He wore an unreadable expression. His pace was even and he seemed shorter than before. Or maybe taller; she wasn't sure.

She and Zuko stood fully dressed, looking at him with lopsided smiles that Katara wished weren't so shallow. Aang ran to her and swung his arms around her waist, nuzzled his head between the flex of her neck and shoulder. She wondered suddenly if she smelled like Zuko—or if Zuko had a smell, and if so, if Aang could recognize it—so many days in the Swamp had left her clueless, and she stood there, as dumb as ever, returning the hug and feeling her ribcage loosen and shake like the frame of an ancient building, on the verge of collapse.

Aang let go and nodded in Zuko's direction, then embraced him briefly before grabbing Katara again. She was so, so relieved to see Aang smiling—she wondered why that would be a relief instead of the expected. Guilt felt sticky like egg yolks and gum paste and she didn't like it at all. Aang broke the silence with his good-natured laughter. "Looks like Appa found you guys before I did!" he boomed.

"That he did," said Zuko, and it bothered Katara that he was forcing his tone to be light. "He's clever. He could probably smell us from a mile away. Or something." He hesitated. "What happened to your saddle, though? Everything is missing."

"I didn't bring it." Aang turned to Katara and hugged her again, tightly. She felt her breasts press against him and her stomach dropped to her knees. Aang looked at Zuko with his arm around his fiancées hips. "I was worried I would only find one of you. I'm so glad you protected her."

"I don't need protecting." Katara laughed, sporting a queasy smile. "But Zuko was helpful to me."

"I bet," Aang said, but she wasn't sure if this was spiteful or just said for the sake of saying something.

"Why didn't you bring his saddle?" Zuko asked, before the previous matter could develop and divide into details. "It's going to be kind of difficult to get out without one."

"I knew better. I mean, last time I was here, we were sucked down into this enormous tornado and all of our stuff went missing anyway. Besides," he finished, grinning, "it's not so bad to ride bareback. Just takes some getting used to. But it's not impossible." He looked at Katara again, his eyes big and full of all the trust and love in the world. She closed her own eyes and swallowed. "So glad I found you both," he said, not turning to Zuko. "Let's get out of here."

On the ride up, the trio was silent. It was late morning and the sky was dark and rainy. All the clouds looked gray and the white clouds seemed to be swirled into the gray ones. This made Katara frown and she distracted herself by thinking of lies.

Aang removed his tunic and gave it to Katara, who wore it against her will despite the fact that she wasn't all that cold. She guessed this was because her kimono was revealing and that Aang didn't like it. He had his own ways of displaying his disapproval, of this she was sure. Still, the fact that he had given her his tunic suddenly suggested that he was controlling what she showed of her body—not her temperature—and the thought brought a burst of anger to Katara that was unfamiliar and enlightening, like a jolt of electricity. She eyed him with detached determination for the remainder of the flight. Zuko asked how long it had been and Aang told them that it had been a month since their disappearance. Katara felt like vomiting.

They landed in a small Earth Kingdom village, Gong Kei, where Aang was staying with Sokka, Toph, and the mayor of the city, a nervous man by the name of Ping. There was a large meeting to be scheduled in Gong Kei for the upcoming month, and Ping had offered the Avatar and his makeshift family an all-expense paid stay until the big day. Ironically, the meeting Katara and Zuko were sent to had been cancelled because several of the generals couldn't make it. When Katara heard this she put her head in her hands and laughed soundlessly. Zuko crossed his arms and looked at the sky.

The entire first day back, Katara couldn't believe it was real. She felt as though she were witnessing these events happening in a dream or a on a stage—but she was out of her skin, still trapped somewhere deep in the Swamp. She knew Zuko felt this way too because she could feel the hiccups in his thinking—once or twice, someone was talking or they were all talking at once, and Katara looked to find Zuko staring at her, and she had been staring at him, and in this way she felt as though she was connected to him in some unbreakable way, and it only made the sticky guilty feeling worse.

She slept deep and didn't dream.


	15. Bath

What Happens in the Swamp

**Summary**: "What happened with Zuko…Aang, it was a one night thing. You don't understand. We had been there for weeks." Sometimes she apologized without realizing what she was apologizing for. Exploration of the Swamp, years later. Kataang, Zutara, Rated M.

**A/N: **I realize the timing overlaps a little bit! Sorry! Always looking forward to your input so don't be shy - review me!

scorpiaux

* * *

-15-

_This is my problem. How can anyone hide the truth? The truth is never yours to hide. So who does it belong to? And can they keep a secret?_

* * *

Upon landing in Gong Kei, Katara had immediately insisted on a bath. Aang led her to their temporary lodgings and directed Zuko to his apartment, a short walk across the mayor's private courtyard. Katara couldn't help but feel that these distant arrangements were made on the spot, and she shot Aang a brief look. Zuko glanced at Katara but she wasn't looking at him, busying herself instead with the single bag that had made it through the month in the Swamp. He sighed and turned his attention to the ground. Then he took Aang's shoulder. "Hey," he said, trying to control his volume. "Thank you. I really owe you one." He hesitated. He touched the back of his neck with his free hand. "We… we thought we were going to be in there forever. Kind of stupid, I know. But it's weird. It felt like years."

Aang smiled with the corner of his mouth. Zuko's stomach turned over, expecting a snide remark or tart reprimand. But the Avatar merely squeezed Zuko's shoulder slightly before letting go. "No worries. Don't mention it."

They parted. Aang didn't look back but Zuko kept turning his neck. He was doubtful but now he was also afraid. Why was Aang so levelheaded? Did he know? Of course, Aang must have assumed the worst already – it was human nature. But why wasn't he doing anything? Then Zuko felt a sudden rush of dread fill him – what was he waiting for? Aang wasn't one for revenge, but Zuko knew that he was the jealous type, and Katara meant the world to him.

Meanwhile, Katara filled an oval tub with hot water and soap. A film of steam stuck to the mirror and the glass flasks of shampoo. There was a lilac colored tarp that served as the door. It was obvious to Katara that this was Aang's room; his clothes were kept neatly on a chair in the corner, his razor blade on a towel on the sink. Katara sunk into the water and grimaced as she noticed the color change from milky white to a deep brown. She washed her hair until it rinsed clear and scrubbed the gray spots from her arms and legs. She splashed hot water on her face. Strangely enough, after a solid two hours, Katara emerged through the tarp feeling that so much still needed to be cleaned.

She put on one of Toph's night robes. It was noticeably too short and Aang looked at her from where he sat on the mattress, working on replacing a piece of his glider. It bothered her that he didn't comment. He put his screwdriver down when she sat next to him. "Feeling better?"

"Yes, a lot." She hated herself for forcing a smile. The guilt hadn't rinsed away in the bath, and now – more than anything – she wanted to sleep and forget.

Aang turned to face her and cupped her cheek in his right hand. "You look so tired."

"Yes," she replied softly. "I missed sleeping on a bed."

"You should get some rest. I'll leave you here and bunk with Sokka tonight." He leaned forward and kissed her forehead. Then he knelt, picked up his glider, and turned around.

Katara stood and grabbed his arm suddenly, exclaiming "Wait!" a little louder than intended. He stopped without turning around. "Aang," she continued, pulling on his elbow. "Aang, wait. Don't leave yet."

He looked over his shoulder. "Are you sure? I don't want to be a distraction. You need to sleep."

She let go. She took a few steps back and crossed her arms. The air in the room seemed to thicken, and Katara breathed deeply without looking up. If he was aware of the tension between them, he was doing a fantastic job hiding it. He stared at her with something akin to detachment, but she demanded before she knew what she was saying, "I know you want to ask me. Just ask me now and get it over with."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

The pressure made her hostile. She didn't want him to be calm and peaceful when there were wars in her heart. Katara laughed bitterly and drew further away from him. "Oh! You know damn well what I'm—"

"Why would I ask when I already know the answer?" he interrupted loudly. "You love me. I love you. I know you didn't sleep with Zuko. Okay? I'm not stupid."

Katara's arms dropped. Her eyes widened and she gaped at Aang soundlessly, unable to speak. She conjured a faulty stammer. "You… you…"

"Look," he said, "I know you're stressed, and I want you to sleep for the next couple of days. I'll see you in the morning, Katara." He kissed her mouth softly and turned around. This time she didn't stop him. Katara collapsed on the edge of the bed and put the heels of her palms over her eyes. _I'm not stupid_, she mouthed to herself. _I'm not stupid. I'm not stupid. I'm not stupid._

"I'm so stupid," she stated aloud to no one.


	16. Toph

What Happens in the Swamp

A/N: bringing this back from the dead. Boy, oh boy.

* * *

_Zuko's body is white. When he takes off his clothes, even when he's dirty, his skin is so pale it shines. It reminds me of glow worms and maggots and then I think, 'Oh God, what have I done?' and the guilt just builds and builds like snow, each flake a little paler than the last, a little heavier. I want to ask him if he feels it too. "Zuko," I'll say, "look, I can't take this, I can't do it. I can't kiss Aang without thinking of you. I can't sleep with him without remembering. You grabbed my waist from behind. We fucked in a tree, for spirit's sake. Tell me what I should do. Tell me what to say." _

_But I can't say these things. _

_Then, Aang. Aang, who looks at me and tilts his head like a pup. He has storm-cloud eyes. "Baby," I want to say, "Baby, please forgive me, I danced with a devil that glows in the dark."_

* * *

Their stop in Gong Kei was lengthened. The mayor was generous, more than willing to prolong their stay. Katara began to feel restless, insisting they move, and Toph also wanted out. But Aang suggested otherwise. Sokka, Aang, and Zuko were not around for most of the day, working on drafts for welfare programs in the Fire Nation colonies. This left Katara and Toph to their own devices.

A few mornings after Katara and Zuko's return, Katara woke up early and prepared tea and breakfast. She made extra eggs for Toph and kept a glass of tea warm for her by passing it over the fire. After about an hour, Toph woke up and joined the waterbender around the kitchen table.

"Good morning," Katara offered, handing Toph her tea. "I'm bored out of my mind. I might go bending later. Do you want to come?"

"I want to get out of here," Toph replied flatly.

"I know," Katara sighed, throwing her head in her hands. "I'm so sick of this place."

Toph took a sip and asked, "Does Aang know yet?"

Katara's spine stiffened a little as she turned away from Toph, unsure how to answer. Denial would give her away, and her increased heart rate at this second already spoke volumes. It was impossible to dodge. But the idea of release was a welcome one, and Katara buckled without so much as a grunt.

"It's terrible – I'm terrible!" And then she burst into tears, more from anger than sadness, more from confusion than guilt. Toph did not embrace her. She listened as Katara's crying softened.

"You aren't terrible," Toph said unsurely. She made a face, full of pity, unsure how to play the role of comforter. "You've got a bad case of jitters," she mentioned instead.

Katara wiped her nose on the sleeve of her kimono. Her head throbbed. "I can't help it. I find myself shaking almost all the time now."

"What are you going to do?"

"I really don't know." And it was true. Though Katara usually had a plan of action for whatever mindless situation she found herself in, she had no idea what to do next. The only thing she felt towards Aang was guilt – the only thing towards Zuko, anger and fear. She needed peace. "What do you think I should do?" Katara asked Toph desperately. "I'm so lost, Toph. I feel so alone and scared."

Toph put her hand on the healer's shoulder and breathed in. "You thought you were going to die," she said. "Sure, it was stupid, but you're young. You didn't know. You thought that you were going to be in there forever."

Katara nodded, glass-eyed. She kneaded the hem of her kimono in her hands.

"Everything is going to turn out fine. People make mistakes, you know? And so what? It's not like it's the end of the world. A few years from now you'll forget that this even happened."

Katara laughed abruptly. "I don't know about that!" she said. "I just wish I could turn back time. It was bad of me. But it was Zuko's fault too, and I hate that I can't talk to him alone." She looked up hopefully. "Maybe if I talk to him I'll feel better, you know?"

"I'll help you out tonight," Toph promised. Katara wiped her face again and threw her arms around the earthbender tightly.

That night when the boys returned, Toph stole Aang and Sokka away with a sparring challenge. It was hard to convince Aang to come, and he was suspicious that Zuko and Katara would be left alone, but he ended up leaving anyway. Zuko said he would take a nap and join them later.

About ten minutes after they left, Zuko found himself in Katara's quarters. They hugged. For a long time, they were unsure what else to do. She began weeping again – how she hated herself for this weakness – and he stood stilly and listened.

"We are so stupid," Katara said into his shoulder. "Zuko, I'm a monster."

"Don't say that," he said easily. "I know it was bad. I didn't mean to dishonor Aang. We were in a special situation. It wouldn't have happened otherwise."

His voice brought her peace, and she hugged him tighter. They were both standing. She was suddenly struck with the realization that she was glad – glad that Zuko was here and ever gladder that he was speaking to her – and she pulled away and held him at arm's length.

He looked disheveled, his eyes hollowed out from lack of sleep, sporting thick bags under his eyelids. He was sad. Their sadness resonated in the room and Katara sat on the edge of the bed, her shoulders slumped inward as far as they would go.

"I have to tell Aang," she murmured slowly. Even as she said this, she was uncertain if it would actually happen. Just looking at Aang forced her to silence.

"If that's what you want to do, then we'll do it," Zuko said.

"Do you love me, Zuko?"

The question caught him off guard. He scattered his gaze to the floor, then the ceiling. Katara was looking at his face. He said, "What?"

"Do you love me?"

"What does that have to do with – "

"Don't," Katara warned. "Just answer me. I remember how you held me." She broke eye contact, tears clinging to her eyelashes as round as raindrops. "I remember how we kissed. How you touched me. It wasn't lust, Zuko."

"I don't know what it was," he confessed quietly. He sat next to her and put his hand on hers, his fingers large and thin. "I really care about you and Aang, and I hate that this is bringing us all confusion and pain. We're out of balance."

"You haven't answered me yet," Katara pushed. "Tell me you love me."


	17. Spider

Zuko couldn't sleep. He lay in his bed stiffly, his eyes following a spider on the ceiling. It was spinning a web in the corner above the window. Restlessly, Zuko blew a string of fire at the insect's labors, and the web dissolved to ash. The spider started up again. This happened three times until Zuko gave up.

"This is so stupid," he whispered to the spider. The spider continued to spin its web. Eight hours after he'd told Katara he loved her – no, eight hours after Katara had bullied him to say it – Zuko was disappointed. They had accomplished nothing in their confessions, no wonderful instant change, no new life together. Then she had kissed him. Zuko forced the memory now, alone in the dark. It wasn't an innocent kiss. Katara said, "Oh, God! I love you too!" and flung herself at him.

But maybe 'flung' wasn't a fair word to use, and it made Zuko sick to think that he was already creating a vocabulary that would come to his defense. He could see himself facing Aang, explaining with his hands open and his palms up – "Honestly, she flung herself on me. What was I supposed to do?" But Zuko knew his moral character wouldn't allow it. The voice in his head that often took Iroh's face would tell him otherwise. She hadn't flung herself. It was him. He had embraced her. And they had kissed. Then…

Then they had collapsed on the bed. Collapsed is another defense word, thought Zuko. He had thrown her there. She had bitten him, turned him on, wrapped her legs around his torso so that she could link her ankles on his back. When they were done, he was embarrassed. He could at least blame the Swamp for his animalistic behavior before – so could she – but now, they had no excuse. He saw this shame flash in Katara's eyes as she dressed before Aang came back, her cheeks thoroughly flushed.

"What have we become, Zuko?" she asked quietly, and he closed his eyes and buried his head in his hands.

"Do you want to blame this on love, too?" he said. "Define love for me, Katara. You love Aang, right? So why don't we leave each other alone?"

It was true that he wasn't thinking when he said this, and in many ways, he didn't mean it. But he was groggy and warm, too soon after sex to be conversing. Katara glanced sharply at him, her lips pressed in a thin line. When she started speaking, Zuko could tell she was exerting extra effort to keep her voice low. "Do you mean that?"

Zuko grunted and turned his back to her.

"Zuko."

"Can you define it?" he asked again. "You can't. So what are you doing here?"

She laughed bitterly before throwing her kimono off and standing before him naked. "What am I doing _here_? This is my room – get out!"

He had looked at her, startled by her yelling and the sudden decision to undress. She picked up his underwear and his pants and threw the garments at his chest squarely. "Katara," he started.

"You just kissed this good-bye," she spat fiercely. "Go define your mom. I'm going to go scrub your stink off me." He watched her slim body stride easily to the bathroom, as if they were just discussing the weather. Her coolness and her temper unnerved him. He dressed quickly and retired to his room.

And now, here he was, torturing a spider-beetle at four a.m. He felt that Katara was bluffing, but it bothered him that he didn't know for sure, and this uncertainty was enough to keep him awake. Mai wasn't like this, Zuko thought. Mai was easy. But then again, he hadn't known about the affair that would break them apart, and even now, he couldn't piece together when Mai was going out to meet with her beau. He guessed it was during meetings. After the breakup, he had rested awake like this, replaying every conversation between him and Mai, every moment where she said 'I'm going out,' or 'I'm going to see some friends tonight,' all the while planning to open her legs for some stranger.

The offended had become the offender, thought Zuko. He was that stranger now. He wondered if Mai had felt this way about her new man, if they consumed one another with the same hunger and thirst that could paradoxically exist between himself and Katara. He had never been close to the waterbender on their travels, and in some ways he had taken extra caution to distance himself from her to assure that Aang would not be suspicious. He realized now, of course, that he had been afraid. He had always found Katara beautiful and he could not trust himself.

The spider completed its final web and lay stilly now in the middle of it. Zuko heard a very light knock on his door. He didn't move, suspecting his mind was playing tricks on him. But the knock voiced itself again, and Zuko rose grudgingly to his feet and opened the door.

"Go back to sleep," he said absentmindedly when he saw Katara. She made a face at him, and it surprised Zuko that he was speaking from hurt, something he hadn't done since his conflicting years after banishment. "I'm sorry," he said instead. "Come in. Please."

She followed him in the room. When he reached to light the kerosene lamp, she held his arm. "Don't," she said. "It's too dark for that. I don't want to make a scene."

"Then why are you here?" he asked, straining to keep his volume down. "I'm glad you at least brought some clothes this time. Or are you going to strip for me and then walk out again?"

She pressed her palm to his mouth to silence him; it was warm and dry. It smelled like soap. "Please shut up," she replied. "I just came to apologize." She hesitated. "I mean, I couldn't sleep." She kept her hand over his lips, her blue eyes brimming with broken pride, unable to meet his. They were ruining one another, thought Zuko, and he felt that everything they had been through together was fantastical and absurd, but he didn't want to stop.

He removed her hand with a newfound gentleness. "I'm sorry too," he said. "I can't think straight after sex."

She smiled her shy smile at him. "I told Aang," she said, startling him. "I talked to him when he came back, after my bath. I'll tell you what happened tomorrow. I can't stay here." Zuko watched her back out of his room slowly and cross the courtyard to Aang's room, where the Avatar was deep in sleep. What Katara had told him, Zuko didn't know, but the guilt began to build. Zuko noticed the spider was missing. This, in addition to Katara, caused him an exhaustible amount of anxiety, and he slept deep into morning.


End file.
